More than Six Thousand Years in Space
by Sakiku
Summary: 4th in Six Thousand series, follows Six Thousand Years in a Room. A jump into the future and to the edges of immortal psyche. Crossover Hellsing Highlander


**Disclaimer:**

See Six Thousand Years in a Bar.

**Summary:**

4th in Six Thousand series, follows Six Thousand Years in a Room. A jump into the future and to the edges of human psyche. Crossover Hellsing Highlander

* * *

**Considerably More than Six Thousand Years in Space**

_In the beginning, there was darkness. _

_The darkness was formless and void, and it lay at the bottom of the waters, and no man had ever spoilt its vastness._

_It was black and unending, and utterly still. _

_Until, one day, there fell a spark of life from the heavens._

…

Through the darkness, mind-numbing pain explodes.

He writhes in the cold, impaled like a butterfly. He struggles for breath but draws only water into his lungs. He coughs tears and bile and blood, and rips something in his stomach where he is pinned down.

His animalistic reflexes fight mindlessly for survival, no place for thought in his terror. Every desperate cough only exchanges the freezing water in his lungs for another few liters. And the wound in his guts tears open further.

It does not take long for him to succumb to the loss of air, blood, and body heat.

…

He doesn't know how many times of reviving and dying it takes until he manages to wrench a somewhat rational control over his primal instincts. It takes an inhuman effort of will, but he doesn't allow himself to fail. He suppresses his coughing reflex as best as he can and stills his body so that the beam piercing through him won't do any more damage than it already has.

He opens his eyes.

The only reason he knows he has succeeded in opening them is that whatever kind of liquid surrounds him burns. The visuals of red and yellow stars of pain and suffering do not change, nor does the darkness. The silence stays absolute. Judging by the pressure all around him and that incredible weight on his lungs, he must be quite deep down under water. At least a few thousand feet.

He feels around with his hands.

As far as his fingers can reach, he touches something hard and smooth beneath him. Metal, not rock. And the beam he has been impaled on is metal, too. Too long to lift himself off it without loosing consciousness. Too deep into the sheet of metal he has been pinned to. There will be no escape for him.

He wriggles his toes.

There is no feeling in them because the water around him is freezing. But he thinks he still has toes. And feet. And legs. Unless the pain spreading through them is a formidable case of phantom pain.

He succumbs to his panic.

…

It isn't the first time that he curses his photographic memory. Flashes of a thousand wet deaths tied to an empty barrel in an empty ocean dance through the blackness in front of his eyes. Flashes of salty madness a thousand light years away.

Panic until he drowns himself. Endless agony and fear.

The only thing keeping him in the present is the knowledge that, last time, he didn't have a steel beam through his guts.

…

His last acquaintance with a wet death like this was centuries ago, many years before mankind ventured into space. Several monks, a shoddy boat, and a storm. A bad storm. Instead of his goal of the British East coast, he had been swept to Greenland. He had vowed to never make a voyage like that again. Since that experience, he had never set foot again on a boat that traveled out of sight of a coast line.

A long time ago, he had decided that ships simply are not for the likes of him. They tend to draw bad weather, break during the ensuing tragedy, and abandon him to the mercy of nameless oceans.

He should have known that space ships also fall under that category. They are, after all, ships. Only that they are, contrary to their past brethren, as seaworthy as a rusty bucket filled with bolts and strategically placed holes. At least ships from earlier times had been made of wood, which floats on the surface of water instead of pinning him to the bottom of the seas.

This time, he doesn't have the comfort of knowing that some day, the currents will drift his body ashore.

This time, he doesn't even have the comfort of knowing that the planet he has been stranded on is inhabited.

…

Sometimes, dying hurts like a bitch. He thinks he has the right to complain because he has experienced more deaths than anyone else in the world.

He has been tortured to death a couple of times, stabbed, eviscerated, impaled. He has felt acid creeping through his veins, eating him from the inside out. He has felt that desperate, clawing, gutting terror-fear-panic at the brink of unconsciousness that pushes any thought aside except to _live_.

But he also knows the near instant death of having a blade shoved into his brain. He knows the slow, creeping death of poison gradually shutting down his body. He knows the cold, dizzy death of succumbing to bloodloss. He knows of almost painless ways to slip into his not-so-eternal sleep.

Everything grows dark again around him; even the blossoms of pain and agony in his sight shut off from lack of oxygen. The water in his lungs is fatal, even more so than the spike impaling him.

But, in his personal experience, the cold is the worst. The freezing, cold water that has crept into every pore of his body, leeching out his warmth as soon as it is produced. His automatic shivering aggravates his injuries, sending bolts of pain through him.

He is terrified of the fact that his body will continue reviving despite its core temperature slowly dropping to match its surroundings. If he were younger, his Quickening wouldn't have enough energy to jump-start enough of his systems to allow higher brain functions before the cold kills them again. No. He doesn't even have the luxury of slipping away in a cold dream. More than six thousand years of Quickening are so strong that he regains completely lucidity until the lack of oxygen kills him.

He feels himself drift off, always fighting to not struggle against his suffocation. It's more painless if he doesn't move around the steel beam through his guts. His muscles tremble faintly, whether from cold or pain or terror – he doesn't know. He is too weak to do anything more than tremble, anyways.

Everything grows hazy, distant. The pain barely connects him to his body.

Then it is gone.

…

And then, once again, his struggle begins anew with mind-numbing pain exploding inside him.

Reviving, contrary to dying, _always_ hurts like a bitch. He hasn't felt a revival yet where no agonizing spikes shoot through his body, hammering stale and clotted blood through his veins, inflating collapsed lungs by force. He hasn't felt a revival yet where his first seconds of consciousness weren't filled with a primal, animalistic terror to _breathe_ despite heart-stopping pain of decaying, spasming muscles electrifying his dead brain cells with oxygen.

The pain of reviving is even worse when the cause of death hasn't been removed yet. Especially when the first involuntary muscle twitches of awakening impale him further on a metal shard and inhale water.

He thinks it a shame that humans lost their gills somewhere along their evolutionary line.

He dies again.

…

Sometimes, he cannot control his panic upon reviving soon enough. Those are the times when the agony of living seamlessly melds into the agony of dieing.

He hates those instances because it is all too easy to lose himself to the pain.

…

Over the period of countless revivals, he can feel himself deteriorate.

The times he thinks he can grab at least a little bit of sanity in this madness grow further and further apart. If this goes on, he will end up completely broken, his mind utterly shredded by impenetrable layers of pain and terror.

He knows that there are ways to minimize suffering. Meditations to control pain. Meditations to force out all emotions.

But, to work across death, he has to go deeper than that.

Meditations that make his mind invulnerable to any inputs from reality.

The question is – can he afford to become basically unaware of his surroundings, not able to react in an emergency? Never knowing when to come out of this meditation?

Wouldn't that be as bad as drowning his mind beneath pain and terror?

But thinking has become so hard. He realizes that he has almost lost himself already.

He doesn't even possess the ability to reason properly anymore.

For the moment, his desire to escape suffering wins.

It takes almost more than he can give to concentrate on visualizing a blue square right in front of his eyes. This is a routine he has ingrained so deeply into himself that, even in his adrenaline-flooded, completely terrified state, his mind reacts.

Tranquility spreads through his veins, quickly enough to slip into a trance before the fight or flight reflexes of approaching death are fully triggered.

Nothing else exists except for the blue square. He sinks deeper and deeper, circumventing his reflexes one by one.

_Bluuuueee_, he exhales slowly through the stabbing agony in his gut. Water rushes from his lungs, blood from his entrails. He is so focused that he doesn't even cough when he inhales another lungful of water.

_Bluuuuueeeee_, he exhales again.

He looses track of time.

Slowly, blue turns to black.

…

_Bluuuueeeee…_

He lets himself surface from the deep, blue concentration, enough to make the decision he hadn't been able to last time.

He knows that there is a point where every human mind breaks. Despite his immortality, he is still human enough for that. And he has almost reached that point.

He struggles to keep himself sane. He struggles not to think of how long he might be caught down here. Decades. Centuries of reviving and then dieing. He will need something that is greater than him, that will last as long as he needs it.

_blue_

Adam Pierson. Bennie Adams. Patricius. Erasthenos. Ahmed bin Yussuf. Lothar von Hoheneck.

He remembers all the names he has taken while living amongst mortals. Dieing like mortals despite his immortality. Those are identities he has assumed to change with the times. He has created those personas, and thousands more. They are all part of him, their lovers his lovers, their sorrows his sorrows.

But they are not him.

Since their lives are so short, those personas never have to change a lot. They are hard shards of individual personality, but since their personalities are so strong, they will break under enough pressure. And since they are only mortal, the constant wear and tear of a possible eternity of suffering will annihilate them sooner or later.

If he wants to endure until he can live another day, he cannot afford to be mortal.

_blue_

Slave, father, lover, traitor, warrior.

Brother.

Death.

Those are truly immortal concepts. They have been around for millennia before he was born, and will remain until the last human dies. They are truly eternal, and thus have no concept of past, present, or future. They are infinitely malleable, changing to adapt to changing times. There never is only one of them, because there are many kinds of slaves. Many kinds of warriors. And many kinds of death.

At certain times in his life, he has been one of their incarnations. He has been called slave, father, lover, brother. He has been called Death.

He has certainly been called immortal.

But in all ways that matter, he is still mortal. He is only one person, and his existence can be ended. Like with mortals, his inner-most drive is the will to live. And, like with mortals, he has instincts that help him implement his will.

Eternal concepts simply _are_. They have no need to survive. They have no need to fear death.

If he doesn't fear death, he won't be able to live anymore. He would only have a mindless existence.

No, he cannot afford to be truly immortal.

_blue_

Methos.

Immortal, yet mortal. Ever-changing, yet made of unchangeable parts. Something that has endured torture, suffering, love, fear, happiness. A curious amalgamation of human and inhuman concepts that continues to live throughout the centuries, but still fears its death.

Will it be enough to survive a possible eternity of suffering?

Without any outside help, it could be millennia until either the ocean shifts enough for him to be uncovered, or the metal beam pinning him down rusts away in the cold waters. A single fish could bite off his head. A volcanic eruption could burn his body to ashes while he cannot move. There are so many things that could go wrong. And there is nothing he can do.

It will be a miracle if he gets out of this alive.

But there is one thing he can do: he can survive. Survive to hopefully live another day. However that day may look like.

It will be an almost impossible feat to balance his mortality against his immortality. As long as he cannot do anything in his watery grave, he has to be the immortal that simply _is_ throughout the times, knowing that his situation will be over someday. There cannot be any place for fear because it would eat him alive. He will have to endure for as long as it takes.

But as soon as he has a choice again, he must don his mortality once again so that he can make the decision best suited for survival. It is mortals who fight hardest because they have something to fight for. They have to fight while they still _can_.

With that reasoning, he doesn't even have to make a conscious decision on what to do. There simply is only one way for him.

He lets the blue square consume him again, shoving all mortal thoughts away. Now, it is time to simply _be_.

_Bluuuueeeee…_

Only a small part of him is aware when death stops his life.

…

_Bluuuuueee…_

Without a way to measure time in his eternal darkness he can't tell for sure, but he thinks his revivals are getting further apart. He also spends less time awake every time he is revived.

He doesn't know whether it is the all-encompassing cold, his constant blood loss, or a weakening of his life force. He only knows that death comes just a little bit quicker every time.

_Bluuuueeee…_

…

He has tried to keep count of how many times he has died down here. It is not a good way to measure time, but it is something to cling to. To keep a semblance of mortality in a timeless, blue void.

He knows how quickly he revives. Knows how long it takes him to come back to life after almost every death except beheading.

In the beginning – probably multiple deaths per day. Now – maybe one or two deaths per week. But for every time he manages to become lucid, there are at least five where his trance doesn't recede enough for him to realize he actually is alive. Tendency increasing.

He lost count around three thousand.

_Bluuuueeeeee…_

…

_Bluuuueeee…_

Somewhere down the line, he has adapted to the feeling of water in his lungs. Inhaling icy cold liquid upon revival has become second nature to him. It is only on very rare occasions that he still has to cough. It still hurts somewhat, but pain has lost its meaning.

The cold water numbs it all.

_Bluuuuueeeee…_

It helps, of course, that he doesn't breathe anymore.

…

_Bluuuuueeeeee…_

He has come to the point where he refuses to awaken completely. His consciousness is more or less floating in the waters, carried by his Quickening.

_Bluuuuuueeeeee…_

Sometimes, he is aware. Sometimes, he isn't.

It has ceased to matter, because death has become life has become death so often that they have lost their meaning.

Only his Quickening remains.

_Bluuuuuuuueeeeeeeeee…_

Immortality.

…

_-darkness-_

_Bluuuuuueeeeee…_

_-darkness?-_

…

_-darkness!-_

_Bluuuueeee…_

_-DARKNESS!!-_

_Bluuuuuuueeeeeeee…_

_-Darkness Crackling Lightening Touch. Question!_ –

_Blue?_

_-darkness Darkness SHADOW Darkness darkness-_

_b-l-a-c-k? Bluuuuuueeeeeeeee…_

_-Darkness. Soon.-_

…

_-Darkness._-

_Bluuuueeee…_

_-Darkness!-_

_Bluuuueeee…_

_-SHADOW-_

_Bluuuueeee?_

_-SHADOW. Touch.-_

_Blue?_

_-Glee. SHADOW. Touch.-_

_... black?_

_-Glee! Darkness. SHADOW. Red._-

_Red? Life._

_-GLEE!! Darkness. Alive!-_

_Alive?_

_-Alive. Darkness. Immortal.-_

_Immortal… Blue. Mortal._

_-Immortal! Darkness WAKE!-_

_wake…_ _wake?_

_-SHADOW TOUCH WAKE!!-_

_Wake. Not dead!_

Not dead.

Not cold.

Heartbeat.

Long time.

Heartbeat still there.

Always Darkness close.

Dry. No pain. Breathing.

No blue needed. No death anymore.

_-SHADOW TOUCH WAKE!-_

He gasps. He feels.

Air. Warm. No death.

_-darkness-_

He leaves the Blue.

Completely exhausted, he sleeps.

_-darkness-_

…

_-darkness-_

Slowly, he wakes up.

_-darkness-_

He feels something strange. Something dark hovering above him.

He opens his eyes.

A smirking face, topped with a blood-red hat fills his vision. Crimson eyes study him over the rim of a pair of yellow glasses.

Glittering fangs are bared at him in a feral grin. "Hello, swordsman."

A slip of – fear? Happiness? Relief?

Memory works slowly. But he finds it does work, if sluggishly.

_-darkness-_

The darkness feels familiar. He has known it for a long time.

It is something from before the Blue. It belongs to something… someone.

The red man here in this room.

_-darkness-_

No, not man. Immortal. Vampire.

He knows this vampire. He doesn't fear this vampire.

The haze in his brain gradually condenses into a name.

"A…lu…card."

…

The vampire smirks. Despite the slur caused by muscles not used in who knows how long, he can understand the Swordsman.

The Swordsman has recognized him.

It sure has taken the Swordsman long enough. It's been almost a month since Alucard had fished him out of the icy waters of this forsaken planet, and almost three weeks since the Swordsman's body had revived the first time. Even now, he needs a reminder every now and then to keep breathing, and there is a strange, blue feeling to his Quickening that hasn't been there before.

Curiously enough, Alucard had been able to feel some of the Swordsman's mind from the very first time the vampire had entered orbit – almost thirty kilometers above the planet's surface.

Due to the planet's interesting rotational properties – its day is as long as its year, and its daily rotation axis is parallel to its yearly rotation axis – there is a permanent day-side and a permanent night-side, and a very small strip of twilight. On the day-side, it is eternally hot, and on the night-side eternally cold. In the twilight, hot and cold clash until they evaporate into storms of epic proportions.

Huge oceans, covering almost 90 percent of the surface, are the only reason life is possible on this planet. They cool the day-side and heat the night-side, until there is a zone outside of the storms of the twilight-area where the temperature is still somewhat reasonable. This strip produces almost all the oxygen in the planet's atmosphere.

For anyone approaching this planet from outer space, the most reasonable orbit is along the equator, the twilight zone, from where all hospitable areas can be surveyed.

The Swordsman had apparently had the same idea, since Alucard had found him about forty kilometers into the twilight zone. What the Swordsman had done in orbit in the first place he has no idea. This planet is almost uninhabited except for a few hardy miners, and not on any major trading route.

The very first time Alucard had been in orbit around the planet, he had dismissed the strange feeling that had appeared and disappeared periodically. His primary goal had been looking for the vampire community that had established itself on the dark side almost a century ago, right after vampires had publicly been revealed to exist. Apparently, some miners had felt threatened enough by the vampires that they gathered a hefty amount of money for whoever was able to get rid of them. And Alucard, in a flash of nostalgia, had accepted the job.

The revelation of vampires hadn't gone over as well as the revelation of the swordsmen centuries earlier. Alucard smirks. There _had_ been pro-vampire rights activists around, but even they had seen after some time and effort that vampires simply are one step higher in the food chain. And, like all prey is supposed to, they feared their predators. And that fear quickly turned into hate.

After the public became aware, planet governments established branches of vampire hunters but, like on earth, they were too few to do any real damage. Sure, the mindless rabble, which most would-be vampires belonged to nowadays, regularly were decimated. The clever ones though could easily find places to hide – the galaxy was big and humans had settled less than 0.01 percent of the planets in their arm of the galaxy. And less than fifty percent of those planets with settlements could say they had anything resembling a planetary government.

No, as soon as humanity had started to spread into space, mortals had given up their one advantage over their predators: that of being able to monitor nearly every square inch of earth's over-populated surface.

Nowadays, most of the vampire slaying is done by free-lance hunters that are after bounties set by anyone wanting to get rid of a vampire. And, just to amuse himself and in memory of the good, old times, Alucard had chosen to pursue this profession. This is how he had gotten wind of the nest of vampires on this planet – a few miners from the day-side got tired of being more or less willing donors for the night-side.

Of course, the miners probably hadn't expected that the bounty hunter demanded their blood, too. It was a glorious blood-bath, a tribute to old times. Not a recommendable path of action for any bounty hunter wanting to get more jobs, but, well, he has never been too serious about being a bounty hunter to begin with.

He has decided that it is high time to change professions once again. Maybe become a rich, eccentric count, buying a moon or two for his private pleasures. Maybe drop in on the Police Girl for a surprise visit. Maybe fool all those weak-minded mortals into making him a governmental Vampire Hunter. The irony of that would be delicious.

But that still is in the future. As soon as the Swordsman can handle interstellar traffic again, they are going to leave this planet full of corpses. What is going to happen afterwards remains to be seen.

Alucard cackles, letting his dark magic crackle against the Swordsman's prickling energy. The Swordsman has once again forgotten to breathe. The echo still tastes of that strange blue-ness the swordsman's mind had been saturated with, but the blue has receded far enough that Alucard might get some coherent entertainment out of the Swordsman.

He leers. "Well, how nice of you to remember me, swordsman! It has been how long that I have last had the pleasure of drinking your blood? Eight centuries?"

It takes a while before there comes a reaction. He can see a hazy mind fighting for clarity, but the Swordsman doesn't quite manage. Finally, the man whispers in a long-forgotten dialect that had once been the origin of Basic. "Don't… understand... what year?"

The Swordsman's voice is about as dry and emaciated as his body looks. Alucard has to grin wildly at the thought of the swordsman looking no more alive than a vampire starved for decades. And, nonetheless, the man is still living, breathing – well, most of the time - and, most importantly, coherent and sane – though a bit rusty and frail around the edges.

Alucard has no doubt that the swordsman has spent the better part of those 800 years Alucard had last seen him stuck to the bottom of this planet. Even vampires that are old enough to physically survive such an ordeal don't always come back as well as the swordsman has – even though they have the advantage of their mind and body simply shutting down after a few weeks. During his two hundred years of service with the Hellsings, Alucard had spent a few decades like that himself. After a few interesting weeks of starvation and utter boredom, the time until his reawakening had left him completely untouched. He had felt nothing of the months and years passing until the next Hellsing had come to unseal him. Time has always been a fickle mistress.

Smirking down at the Swordsman, he replies in the same dialect the Swordsman has spoken. Interplanetary English, more than five centuries out of date. "736 AS."

Once again, it takes a while for the Swordsman to process the words. A touch of Dark Arts against his Quickening keeps him focused when he threatens to drift off into that blueness again. After quite some time, the Swordsman finally looks confused. "AS?"

Alucard lets his grin widen in the full knowledge that he's going to drop a bomb-shell on the Swordsman. "After Space. Zero is the first successful prototype ready for interstellar travel."

"After Space…" the Swordsman repeats slowly, unbelieving. "When?"

"The Helmholtz-Gauß-drive was invented in 2689, but you should know that since your ship must have been equipped with one to get out here. They switched calendars in 2800 AD to 111 AS. That means it's the 35th century. 3425 to be exact."

Very much amused, Alucard watches the Swordsman's reactions. And the Swordsman doesn't fail to disappoint. For a long time, he stares emptily into space. The only thing belying his active mind are his soundlessly moving lips and the ripples in his Quickening that manifest almost tangibly in the room.

Baring his teeth in a raw smirk, Alucard pours some more Dark Magic against this energy to keep it from touching his skin. If he hadn't exterminated every vampire on this planet before, the sheer potency of the Swordsman's Quickening would have fried three quarters of the dark side population in this shitty hole just now.

Since Quickening energy is diametrically opposite to the Dark Magic vampires wield, it is potent enough to hurt even a No Life King if he doesn't put up suitable defense. And Alucard knows that this is only a fraction of the Swordsman's power. It had been thoroughly amusing to try and find the Swordsman's real body, masked by his floating Quickening as it had been. Alucard had certainly enjoyed his jaunt across the muddy ground of the ocean, wading through miles and miles of diluted essence until his shadows had been close enough to penetrate to the real matter at hand.

And even now, after being brought back to the surface, the Swordsman's Quickening has retained a tendency to spread as far as possible and take on a peculiar hue of blue. The Swordsman doesn't seem to have noticed yet, but then again, the Swordsman had only truly woken up a few minutes ago. It certainly is a difference from the absolute control the Swordsman had exerted during their last meeting eight centuries ago.

All of a sudden, the Swordsman's shoulders begin to twitch slightly, his energy bubbling with insane mirth. As if unable to contain it, the Swordsman breaks out in hoarse wheezes, too weak to laugh properly.

Alucard's eyes narrow. Is this a side-effect of the long time spent in the ocean, or is it something else? Has the Swordsman truly lost his mind?

"Full circle," the skeletal frame gasps between dry tears of laughter, "come full circle… sleep six'ndred years… 'n time f'r birthday… 's real birthday, brave new world…"

The Swordsman's emaciated body is wracked with laughter and sobs at the same time, both of them sounding like a mixture of coughs and dry-heaves. His eyes shine brightly, too bright to be completely lucid.

Alucard pours more of his shadows against the Swordsman's Quickening, dampening its insane vibrations. It wouldn't do for him to go through all the trouble of fishing the Swordsman out of the water and waiting for him to wake up, only to let him tumble over the edge of sanity as soon as he starts talking.

After almost a minute of breathless wheezing, the Swordsman stops trembling, utterly exhausted. It takes several nudges of dark energy to remind him to keep breathing.

Suddenly tranquil again, the Swordsman focuses back on the vampire. "Why?"

Alucard smirks. The question doesn't need clarification. It actually is several rolled into one. 'Why are you here', 'Why have you saved me', and 'Why are you still helping me'. He chooses to answer the latter two.

"Oh, don't worry, I expect your radiant presence will be enough payment for helping you. It would be a pity to let you take all your secrets to such an ignoble grave, especially if you have a birthday to celebrate. I assume you are counting centuries, not years for that birthday?"

…

He exhales in silent laughter.

He remembers. Fifty years of questioning, taunting, fighting within Hellsing. He knows what the vampire wants. Blood. Information. Most of all, entertainment.

He knows that as long as the vampire is interested, he will help. And at the moment, he needs all the help he can get.

And so he keeps the vampire entertained. Had kept him entertained for fifty years until reactions became ingrained in flesh and blood. Throwing out bits of knowledge. Enough to keep him interested, but too little to sate his hunger.

"Th'rtyfive," he forces his unresponsive muscles to voice, "only t'rn 'rtyfive once…"

Stars are growing in front of his eyes. A thrum of darkness. Oh, yes, he needs to breathe.

A reflex that has stilled. Lack of use. Will be exhausting to train again. But not as painful as retraining the rest of his muscles.

Yellow glasses fill his vision once again, red smirking through them. "Well, well, well. Thirtyfive centuries. Who would have thought? You are full of surprises, aren't you, Swordsman? You will have to tell me stories of your childhood sometime. But for now, you look a bit pale around the gills. You should sleep, and when you wake up, I will maybe show you some of what you have missed."

Gills? He doesn't have any. Earlier, he had wished he had some, but not anymore. He can breathe now.

And his age once again remains secret. He hasn't told an untruth; only that the full truth is much greater than the vampire expects. The vampire believes, but not enough. The vampire thinks he is thirty-five only one side. He has lived for thirty-five centuries on the other side of Christ, too. And he can't change the other. So he comes full circle only once for every calendar.

Next will be Muhammad. Forty-one. And, perhaps, even After Space one day. Sixty-two on both sides.

He shivers, the blue around him trembling in sympathy.

Darkness grounds him, sending waves of sleep into his Quickening. His eyes become heavy.

When did the vampire get so good at manipulating his Quickening?

More shadows wrap around the room, giving his Quickening limits it can explore. Something that is simply there. Nothing like the boundless emptiness of the oceans.

Having found what it has been aching for, his Quickening settles contently in his chest, spreading warmth and safety through him.

Since when does his Quickening act so independently?

And since when do his Quickening and his body interact to such a degree?

But it doesn't matter. He has risen from the oceans after six centuries, like a babe born anew. There are bound to be changes, both on the outside and the inside. With time, he will learn to deal with them.

He feels like he is on the precipice to a new world.

But for now, sleep is more important.

Slowly, he tumbles over the edge.

…

_The spark fell onto the waters, and it sank until it found the darkness at its grounds. For many score years, it lay there resting from its travels._

_But, lo and behold: One day, the spark awoke with a gasp and all it saw was black. So it grew and flourished and shed its light until the darkness was no more. _

_And without the darkness at its grounds, the waters turned blue._

* * *

**A/N:**

This is very different from the rest of the 6k-series, somewhat of an experiment. And, of course, an exploration into the different types of immortality.

I don't think this has the same rounded feeling as the Bar or the Room, more of an impending new beginning like the Plane. And since I'm not very satisfied with the Plane, I'm not sure what to think of this one, either.

If this story is too confusing, too random, or needs more back-ground explanations, please tell me. I'll try to fix it.

Sakiku


End file.
